Discretion, Love, and Hope
by WritinginCT
Summary: A slightly different twist on Continuum's ending. Cameron Mitchell/Daniel Jackson, Warning for Stargate Continuum Spoilers.


Cam could work himself to exhaustion on the docks with physical labor and did. It was how he kept his own sanity. Daniel kept a quiet solitary life full of books and contemplation. Folks respected the invented war-veteran status that explained away his missing leg and his occasional brooding nature. He tutored affluent families' children in language and history and managed to make a living for himself. The community accepted them as the brothers they presented themselves as and most folks, especially those having been touched by the war themselves, just let them be and ignored anything unusual about the two men.

The little sturdy brick home on the far edge of the city that Cam built for them himself was their sanctuary. They could laugh, they could cry, and they could reminisce and remember those they left behind. And with the addition of the tall brick wall surrounding their property that turned their little sanctuary into a private fortress, they could love.

The thing between them wasn't something that they brought with them from the future but it was something they had found together there in the past.

Two years they had struggled and finally eked out a life for themselves that they hoped would not impact the future. It hadn't been easy on either man and often times irritation and rage were simmering just beneath the surface in both of them. One night it had come boiling out and fists flew between them. Cam didn't give an inch just because of Daniel's disability and oddly when Daniel looked back on the experience later, he was glad, it made it more real somehow. Somewhere amid the punches and the wrestling on the floor for advantage came the tears and the raw and aching _need_. Their coupling was rough and angry and tinged with the near violent frustration both men carried.

They didn't speak when they were done, not for four days. By then their bruises and frustration were fading but not the need or the want and their second coupling, although not particularly graceful or poetic, was more about mutual pleasure and satisfaction than rage or violence.

Through the years they learned how to fit in and blend in and be discreet. They found that taking the occasional pretty woman out for dinner, although patently dishonest, silenced wagging tongues in the community. There were also a few well paid whores that would rave about one or both of the brothers to anyone that cared to ask. Their entire existence was a lie.

There was one place however, that they didn't allow any lies to creep in. Their bed. They each had a past. They each had had lovers, friends, memories, and even secrets and they accepted and respected those things about the other. Cam knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was Daniel's first physical male lover. But he also knew that he was not the first man that Daniel had loved. Cam never asked, half terrified that the honest answer Daniel would give him would match the suspicion that had long ago hatched in Cam's mind as he had lain in his hospital bed reading SG-1 mission reports. And that frankly terrified him because that would be a bond he could never compete with no matter how many years now separated Jack and Daniel.

-/-

Thirteen years after they saved the future by trapping themselves in the past, Cam arrived home after work to an empty house. There was a note on the kitchen table in Daniel's familiar scrawl,

_"I need to go to Chicago for a few days. I'll be back in a week. -Daniel"_

Cam had been waiting for Daniel to go off the grid on him. The weight of knowing the future but not being able to change anything was a heavy burden for the gentle man to bear. But he wondered why now? What exactly had triggered Daniel's little walkabout? And then when Cam glanced at the calendar it hit him and he smiled. Daniel had gone to Chicago to welcome the legendary Jack O'Neill into the world.

When he returned home from Chicago, Daniel's burden somehow seemed lighter. And for the first time since they arrived in 1939 the smile on Daniel's face reached all the way to his eyes.

Later that night as they lie facing each other in bed Daniel's hand gently traced the lines on Cam's face that had deepened through the years from worry and working in the elements. Daniel's expression was soft as he spoke of finally having hope that everything they had been through hadn't been for nothing. Jack had arrived safe and sound and everything was on the right track. The kiss Daniel pressed to Cam's lips was tender and when he pulled back from it and told Cam in no uncertain terms that he loved him, Cam shattered. Because as long as Daniel had been waiting for Jack, Cam had been waiting for Daniel.

-/-

The years went on and Daniel made three other trips.

He watched as his mother bore him and he was taken aback by just how young his parents seemed. He longed to warn them about weak chains and falling cover stones but he didn't. But he did let himself see the love and adoration they exuded as they looked at their son.

He watched as Jacob Carter and his wife held a squalling newborn Sam, and the little tufts of blonde hair sticking up made his heart ache and he missed his friend all the more. In a sad, perverse way he almost wished she had been stuck in 1939 with them.

And finally, he watched a quiet and alert Cam through the glass window of the hospital nursery. As he turned to go, leaning heavily on his cane, a man still wearing a flight suit rushed in and over to the nursery window. It was the first time Cam's father saw his son and the man's joy was tangible.

After each of his trips Daniel's worry lessened. He had no way to know if Vala and Teal'c were where they were supposed to be or not. But the Earth-born members of SG-1 were right where they needed to be.

-/-

Through the years Daniel and Cam made some sound financial investments. Not enough to disturb the timeline or make any sort of names for themselves. But enough so that when the arthritis around the pins and plates in Cam's back got bad enough for him to have to give up working on the docks, they had enough money to still live comfortably. Daniel continued to tutor well past his eighties. And it was one of his former students coming for a visit that discovered that the two men had passed away quietly in their sleep within hours of each other.

No one that knew them would ever know that night they drew their final breath was the day that a half a continent away Jack and Daniel stepped through the gate to Abydos for the first time.

-/-

Daniel knew instantly however.

They had been back from Ba'al's extraction and execution for a few days when a package arrived at the SGC for him.

The package was from a prestigious Boston law firm and contained a thick leather diary and a letter. The letter was from the law firm itself, having been entrusted with the diary back in 1995 with specific instructions to have it delivered after a particular date in 2008.

Daniel looked at the diary and could see a couple of wide ribbons encompassing the diary and sealed closed with wax, an odd, almost familiar signet pressed into it. He carefully cut the ribbon, preserving that signet and gently opened the diary.

His own handwriting staring back at him gave him quite the shock. He collected himself and began to read. He read of Ba'al's attempts to manipulate time and how he and Mitchell remained trapped in the past, destined to live out the rest of their days. He read of their daily lives and the work that they each chose to do. And if he had been surprised to see his own handwriting earlier, he was even more shocked to read of the secret, hidden life that he and Mitchell shared, and of a love affair never allowed to see the light of day.

His other self wrote that he was sending him the diary to not just document their actions, but to specifically tell the Daniel sitting at his desk in 2008 to not miss out on what was right in front of him.

Daniel closed the diary and sat there staring at it, deep in thought. His eyes fell on the signet-pressed wax and realized that the design was actually two glyphs overlapping: love and hope. A long time later he took the diary and left the mountain.

He knocked on a familiar door not caring that it was the middle of the night. Cam opened the door wearing just a pair of sweats and though he was still half-asleep and was suffering the worse case of bed-head that Daniel had ever seen, his face lit up and he smiled widely when he saw that it was Daniel on the other side of the door.

Daniel smiled back and for just a moment allowed himself to imagine waking up to that smile every day for almost fifty-six years. And as he gripped the diary tighter he decided that it was definitely something worth exploring and asked Cam, "Can I come in?".

-/-  
the end.


End file.
